Argues that ESL (English-as-a-Second-Language) teachers can aid in the development of critical insights that encourage students in the process of improving their employment possibilities. The article maintains that, through dialog with students, teachers can focus on their own assumptions regarding immigrants' work world. (12 references)…

Describes the Oral History Project at the American School Foundation in Mexico City, Mexico that focuses on examining the Mexican countryside through oral history projects, infusing art and photography within the issues-centered framework, and promoting the acceptance of other cultures. Views the teacher as a facilitator whereas the students…

Presents books to be used in a thematic unit focusing on readers as heroes and heroines in which characters become readers despite being poor, homeless, deaf, visually impaired, dyslexic, or having parents who are illiterate or who read and write in another language. Describes student activities: research, art, writing, family reading, letter…

Playing computer games is an extremely popular leisure activity for children. In fact, the computer games market in the UK is now double that of the video rental market, and substantially larger than cinema box office sales, and under people under the age of 18 make up 38% of these game players. Based on the popularity and strong motivational…

This article addresses how community-university digital media literacy projects are redefining literacy, literate practices, and institutions. Using Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which emphasizes the organizing process itself, I analyze the shifting definitions of literacy within one particular university-community collaboration. My analysis…

Community service learning offers students the opportunity to cross socially constructed and epistemological borders of power and privilege, allowing them to come into contact with groups of people who are different from themselves and to learn in different ways. Peer facilitators, undergraduate student instructional leaders who guide others…

When Botswana gained independence from the British in 1966, a political decision was taken to designate English as an official language and Setswana, one of the indigenous languages, as a national language. This move disregarded the multilingual nature of Botswana society. Furthermore, although not explicitly stated, the use of other languages…

Writing picture compositions is part of the requirements for the mother tongue language learning in Singapore primary schools. For Chinese as a mother tongue, the prevailing materials used for learning picture composition are confined to only black-and-white drawn pictures. This has caused some problems: (1) not many good and suitable…

This article draws on second language theory, particularly output theory as defined by Swain (1995), in order to conceptualise observations made in a computer-assisted language learning setting. It investigates second language output and learner behaviour within an electronic role-play setting, based on a subject-specific problem solving task and…

This article enters an ongoing discussion about the usefulness of different theories and different research designs in the analysis of classroom writing. Starting with questions about how students interpret the norms of writing and their own selves in school writing, it demonstrates the relevance of an ecological theory of writing,…

For several years, the author has been working with colleagues in the Northern California Writing Centers Association (NCWCA) and the Stanford Writing Center to build bridges between college and high school writing centers. The writing center at Stanford defines one of its central goals as "celebrating a culture of writing" for all…

The authors describe how their institution revised its general education writing curriculum and how that change not only affected the university's approach to advanced composition but also transformed the roles and relationships among teachers, librarians, literacy practices, curricula, students, and the community. Part service-learning, part…

An action research project in Canada set up a penpal program between preservice teachers and middle school children. Its purpose was to promote the literacy development of the younger students and to provide the preservice students with an understanding of adolescents. Although the first year was especially successful and rewarding--the highlights…

In the framework of performance assessment, because of the involvement of many facets, the development of ways to detect differential item functioning or differential facet functioning (DFF) has lagged beyond the practical needs of test developers. To monitor the validity and fairness of an assessment, it is critical to discover a method that can…

Intended for the K-2 classroom, this book provides teachers with ideas and materials for teaching the writing process. The book contains reproducible thinking charts and graphic organizers including mind mapping, prewriting story structure, and topic, content, and editing charts. Advice for classroom management and the organization and structure…